The key drivers are:

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery

A classic cloud driver for people to use hosted compute and storage resources is BC/DR: keeping the organization running if they cannot access their building(s) or their technology resources. Cloud hosting operates as either the primary or secondary delivery mechanism, helping to eliminate dependence upon on-premise kit or taking over if on-premise services are not available.

Overcoming Resource Shortages

Managed cloud hosting helps with all resource challenges – lack of available systems, real-estate, personnel or expertise – by providing companies with dynamic resources available elastically and on-demand, with dedicated experts working as an extension of the customer’s IT department.

Campaign, Special Event or Seasonality

Many organizations, especially in B2C industries like leisure, hospitality, entertainment and retail, run regular one-off campaigns, special events, or have high levels of seasonality in their business model. Managed cloud hosting helps by allowing these companies to “turn up” resources to cope with increased demand then “turn down” when the demand passes. This elasticity – the ability to “cloud burst” – is a huge driver for many businesses and will be significantly more cost-effective than buying hardware that is only used for a short portion of any given year.

Application Upgrades or Performance Issues

Organizations do not always upgrade software (e.g. Exchange) to the latest software load immediately, resulting in expensive hardware upgrades. Others are experiencing hardware-related performance issues with applications that are putting a strain on server infrastructure. This is often a driver for migrating to the cloud as it means companies can focus on managing apps and leave the hardware challenge to us.

Compliance or Regulatory Challenges

Information security is a significant legal, regulatory and compliance challenge. Some industries have best practice guidelines or accreditations that are even more stringent. The cloud offers ways to achieve compliance but also threats – for many, they need to work with UK-based managed cloud hosting providers operating ISO27001 compliant datacenters.

Requirement for Development or UAT Environment

Some of the earliest cloud pioneers were “test and dev” users and it remains a major driver today. The ability to spin up production quality environments to write code and for User Acceptance Testing – with the ability to migrate easily into a live environment – for a limited amount of time, is a compelling driver for cloud hosting.

Eliminate Hardware Ownership

Many IT departments now focus on managing applications and users and using managed services to deliver the IaaS enabling components.